


Without A Soul

by lesbianettes



Series: Turn Off The Light [2]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Brain Damage, Coma, Gen, M/M, Seizures, Whump, takes place Buck's first day in the hospital
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:55:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24890425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianettes/pseuds/lesbianettes
Summary: Something happens while Eddie is at Buck's side.
Relationships: Eddie Diaz & Maddie Buckley (9-1-1 TV), Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Series: Turn Off The Light [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1800838
Comments: 9
Kudos: 154





	Without A Soul

They say Buck died in the ER. Twice, actually. Eddie can’t really process that information, but Hen and Chimney don’t seem surprised; he heard them in the ambulance, talking about the things that he doesn’t want to acknowledge, couldn’t at the time. He wasn’t protecting his airway. And Eddie knows what that means, it means his brain and his body aren’t on the same page, and that’s probably why he died down in the ER before they transferred him up here to the ICU. Of course he can’t go home when he can’t breathe. He had an emergency surgery, Eddie thinks, at some point between stale hospital coffee and his aunt promising to look after Christopher for the next couple days. They put a pacemaker in his chest because his heart is still caught up in the off-rhythm of the electric shock. His diaphragm, too.

Eddie watches Buck’s chest rise and fall in time with the huffing of the ventilator. There’s a tube down Buck’s throat to do that for him, taped securely to his face. He can’t decide if he’s relieved that he’s alive, or angry that it’s like this. It’s not really living. There’s no life. Buck’s cheeks look too pale, and he’s not smiling the way he should. Seeing him so still and lifeless burns.

“Hen and Chimney thought he went brain-dead in the ambulance,” Eddie says. “Or at least started to. He wasn’t breathing, Maddie.”

“The EEG said he’s still there,” she counters.

They don’t say anything else for a while. It’s hard to find anything worth saying. The only thing the two of them have is the body between them, because Eddie has a hard time calling it “Buck” when it’s half dead. He takes Buck’s hand and it’s cold and limp. This is what it felt like to hold his friend’s hand in Afghanistan long after the blood had soaked the sand.

Nurses come in every so often to check on Buck. One of them asks Maddie if she wants to wait a day or so before they put in a feeding tube, just in case, or get it done with just so he doesn’t go without. She tells them to go ahead, and starts crying. Eddie doesn’t know what to do with that. He can handle it when Buck cries, but he doesn’t know Maddie that well. Chimney does. But Chimney isn’t here.

He asks if she wants a hug, and she says yes, so Eddie wraps his arms around her. They cry together for a while, he thinks, and take turns getting coffee while they stay beside him. It’s hard to leave him, out of fear that he’ll be gone when they come back. The doctors say that the machines will keep him from dying as he heals, but that doesn’t do much in the face of listening to Buck’s ribs crack under the force of CPR, or watching his body jerk with the force of some 300,000 volts of electricity that should have killed him. 

If he shuts his eyes, Eddie can pretend to still feel the electricity in Buck’s body. Holding his hand, there’s an imaginary spark that runs up Eddie’s arm, into his chest. It’s all in his head, he knows, but that’s a little better than the total absence of life in this room while Maddie tries to call their parents again. 

Then Buck’s hand  _ moves _ , and Eddie could cry, except for the fact that it’s not- it’s not right. It’s a twitch, and then he looks up and Buck’s body is jerking just like when he touched the line all over again and it has to be some sort of sick joke. He must scream, or something, because the doctors come in and put something in his IV, one of them making a gentle shushing noise at Buck’s shaking body.

“Let’s step outside, honey,” one of the nurses says. Her hand is on his shoulder. “Let them take care of your friend.”

“I’m not leaving!”

He allows her to push him back a little bit to make room anyways. They loosen the blankets tucked around Buck’s body and keep watch over him until the shaking stops, at which point they take his bed out of the room. Eddie tries to follow, but again, gets stopped by the same nurse. 

“He had a seizure, we’re going to do a test to let us see what his brain activity is like. He’s okay.”

She’s gone too. It’s just him now, in the empty hospital room, still standing there when Maddie comes back from her presumably failed attempt to reach out. Her face pales and she drops her coffee. 

“Eddie. Eddie, no.”

That forces him into action, reaching out to her. “No, he’s not- they- he had a seizure, they’re taking him for some kind of test. I- I was holding his hand-”

Now they’re both crying again, their shoes covered in spilled coffee as they wait for Buck to come back to them. He’s okay, Eddie reminds himself. They’re in the hospital. He’s in good hands. Everything is going to be fine, even if it takes an hour for them to bring Buck back and have a janitor get the spilled coffee. They both were too busy trying not to lose it completely to really clean it up. 

Eddie and Maddie sit beside him again, each taking one of Buck’s hands, while the doctor goes into this long winded explanation of the type of seizure Buck had, what it did to his brain waves. It goes over Eddie’s head, mostly, but what he hears is the end bit, that it’s a good thing.

“It’s a good thing that my baby brother had a seizure?” Maddie says skeptically. Her voice is all wobbly. “How is that a good thing?”

“It means he has enough brain function to have a tonic clonic seizure. This type, it’s in the entire brain. It’s a good sign, Ms. Buckley, even if it doesn’t feel like it.”

“When he wakes up, will he still…?” Eddie cuts in.

The doctor tilts his head to either side before answering, a little so-so gesture. “We don’t know. This could be one-off because of electric shock, or it could be a sign of permanent altered function. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

Just like they have to “wait and see” if Buck ever opens his eyes again. 

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr @cupidmarwani requests are open for this AU


End file.
